Modeling and Simulation of an Industrial Formaldehyde Absorption System(Article)

Although the absorption of formaldehyde is a crucial stage within its production process, the number of models available in the literature is limited. The complexity of the absorption of formaldehyde in water, in which chemical reactions in the liquid phase are combined with multicomponent mass transfer, makes the development of an adequate process model a challenging task. In this work, a rate-based model of an industrial absorption system for tray and packed columns was developed. The multicomponent mass transfer was described based on the two-film theory, and the model was implemented in the simulation tool gPROMS ModelBuilder 5.1.1 and validated against data from the design flowsheet provided by the industrial unit licensor and typical operation values measured in an industrial formaldehyde production unit. The simulation results were in good agreement with the expected data. With the validated model, the influence of some operating parameters on the column behavior was studied. Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society.